This special issue of seminar.net is the result of a collaboration between teachers at the two master programmes, “Communication, Design and Learning” at the University of Oslo and “ICT Supported Learning” at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. For 2013-2015, we received a grant from Norgesuniversitetet to develop partnership, flexible teaching and study methods, and to increase learning outcomes among students. The four papers represent the first research results from our project. We are grateful to Norgesuniversitetet for its support.Per Hetland

The first paper, by Per Hetland and Anders I. Mørch, both from the University of Oslo has a title called “Ethnography for Investigating the Internet”. They describe the field by giving an overview of the competing concepts, and argue for their chosen path. They point at important crossing roads and selections that needs to be taken for future research.

Jan Erik Dahl, also of The University of Oslo, presents the paper “Supporting learning through epistemic scaffolds embedded in a highlighter tool”. It explores how the use of the tool was used to support students’ readings and discussions of research articles. He argues that the use of annotation technologies in education is increasing, and that annotations can play a wide variety of epistemic roles; e.g., they can facilitate a deeper level of engagement, support critical thinking, develop cognitive and metacognitive skills and introduce practices that can support knowledge building and independent learning. Dahl criticises some of the underlying assumption of present research in the field and suggest that one needs to look for the active co-construction that students do in collaboration with others.

Monica Johannesen and Leikny Øgrim, of the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, has collaborated with Ole Smørdal of the University of Oslo on the paper “Facebook as an actor - a case of students negotiating their social presence in an online course”. Their paperreports on a study of a higher education online course based on asynchronous communication. In the selection of technology for online discussions they aimed at creating a sense of togetherness among the teachers and the students. Their choice proved to be a insightful experience of how the differences of agency of a virtual learning environment (VLE) are compared to social media when it comes to social presence.

Anders I. Mørch of the University of Oslo has collaborated with Louise Mifsud and Bård Kjetil Engen, of Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences on the fourth paper, called “Problem-Based Learning in Synchronous Networked Environments: Comparing Adobe Connect and Second Life”. Their approach was to compare experiences from using two networked learning environments: Adobe Connect (AC) and Second Life (SL) for supporting teaching and learning in distance education courses. Data were collected from two separate case studies: one in Norway (AC) and the other in the United States (SL), using different but comparable methods of data analysis. They focus on problem-based learning (PBL), using four application characteristics of PBL (learner activity, collaborative learning, feedback, and valuation of previous knowledge).

In addition to the four papers in the special issue of Seminar.net, we also contribute with two more papers.

David Hallberg, representing both The Swedish Red Cross University College and the Stockholm University, has written a paper with Henrik Hansson and Anders G.Nilsson, also from Stockholm University called: “Immigrant Women's Reasoning and Use of Information and Communications Technology in Lifelong Learning”. The paper explores the reasoning and use of information and communications technology (ICT) in lifelong learning by immigrant women. The researchers collected data from semi-structured and unstructured interviews. The study was carried out primarily in a school environment, which also made it possible to draw conclusions about the connection between learning in and outside school environments.

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Review of the national digital survey

Monitor 2011(Egeberg, 2012) is a submission on the fifth quantitative survey of the Norwegian digital health situation completed by Egeberg et al. The survey is a qualified comparison foundation with international surveys on digital competence such as, e.g. PISA. Since 2003, the digital surveys have been completed every other year in Norway to identify indications on schools' digital state. The respondents who were chosen are a selection of school leaders, teachers and student in the 8th and 9th grades and level two in upper secondary school. The submissions research and results are also organized according to these three areas of participants.

Knut Lundby (red.)

We live in an age in which more and more of us are creating our own "digital stories". In 2008, 18% of Norwegian 16-24 year olds were recorded as being active bloggers over the previous three months (Statistics Norway, "ICT in households", 2nd quarter 2008) while more than 2/3 of American teenagers have uploaded self-produced material to the Internet, in the form of YouTube videos, photographs, blogs, stories, remixes etc. (Pew Internet). The numbers of these "user-made" cultural productions are growing year by year and spreading from the younger generation to us adults, who are now the group most increasingly represented on Facebook. In blogs and on Facebook the distinction between amateur and professional is largely meaningless.

John Hartley and Kelly McWilliam (eds.)

Reviewed byBirte HatleholPhD student in Media EducationNorwegian University of Science and TechnologyEmail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The anthology Story Circle is an international study of digital storytelling that discusses the phenomenon in a global context. The book contains 20 articles with contributions from a number of key specialists with wide-ranging experience in the field of DST.

Edited by Heidi Philipsen and Lars Qvortrup

Reviewed by Stephen Dobson Professor Lillehammer University College Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Introduction Two questions can be asked: firstly, not do we need another book on remediation, but why? And secondly, if this is the case, what kind of book should it be? This review spirals around these questions.

Department of Education, Mid Sweden University
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Dr. Anders D. Olofsson
Department of Education, Umeå University
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It seems suitable to begin this review by giving a brief description of the context in which the texts of this book are produced. If it fails to be regarded as a description, then we hope at least it can be regarded as one possible understanding of the context. When contextualizing a book, a good idea seems to be to start with a few words about the editor, Alison A. Carr-Chellman.